cristy@eplrx7.uucp (John Cristy) (07/11/90)
I need a program that takes Postscript and converts it directly to a raster image (i.e. TIFF, GIF, etc.). Please Email recommendations to cristy@dupont.com. Thanks muchly in advance. -- The UUCP Mailer
falk@peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) (07/12/90)
In article <1990Jul11.142258.10596@eplrx7.uucp>, cristy@eplrx7.uucp (John Cristy) writes: > > I need a program that takes Postscript and converts it directly to a > raster image (i.e. TIFF, GIF, etc.). Please Email recommendations > to cristy@dupont.com. Thanks muchly in advance. Isn't this in the frequently-asked questions posting? Postscript is not an image format, or even a metafile format. It's a full programming language that just happens to have an accent on graphics. The way postscript printers work is that they have a computer inside that speaks the postscript language. You send a postscript program to the printer and the printer executes that program. If the program tells the printer to print something, a picture results. Consequently, you can't "convert" postscript to a rasterfile. You have to feed the postscript file into a postscript interpreter. The only postscript interpreters I know of are: 1) the interpreter inside postscript printers. This will generate hardcopy, but not a raster file. 2) Sun's NeWS server. Load your postscript program into the utility program "pageview" and save the results to a rasterfile. 3) GNU's ghostscript interpreter. I don't know if it produces rasterfiles, but I wouldn't be surprised. 4) "Display Postscript" for X11 servers. I know absolutely nothing about this one. -- -ed falk, sun microsystems -- sun!falk, falk@sun.com "What are politicians going to tell people when the Constitution is gone and we still have a drug problem?" -- William Simpson, A.C.L.U.
malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) (07/12/90)
In article <138787@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> falk@peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) writes: >In article <1990Jul11.142258.10596@eplrx7.uucp>, cristy@eplrx7.uucp (John Cristy) writes: >> I need a program that takes Postscript and converts it directly to a >> raster image (i.e. TIFF, GIF, etc.). >Consequently, you can't "convert" postscript to a rasterfile. You have >to feed the postscript file into a postscript interpreter. The only >postscript interpreters I know of are: < list of interpreters deleted > LaserGo's PostScript interpreter _GoScript_ for the IBM PC and clones will generate TIFF files from PostScript files. I _think_ it will also make PCX files, but I don't have the manuals with me, so I'm not sure. | "The three most dangerous Sean Malloy | things in the world are a Navy Personnel Research & Development Center | programmer with a soldering San Diego, CA 92152-6800 | iron, a hardware type with a malloy@nprdc.navy.mil | program patch, and a user | with an idea."
ral@apolling (Robert A. Lerche) (07/12/90)
UltraScript PC (for IBM PC/AT class machines) and UltraScript for the Macintosh from QMS/Imagen are two products which take PostScript input and produce output in a variety of formats (TIFF, Epson printers, HP LaserJet, etc.). Other products are also available from other manufacturers.
jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) (07/13/90)
There's also xps from the contrib software that comes with X11R4. I've had better luck with xps than with GhostScript. To make quick and dirty PostScript to raster converter, one can take xps and change the draws on windows to draws on pixmaps and read back the pixmap when you're done drawing. I tried, and it's pretty straightforward. If there's interest, I could put together some diffs. Caveat, xps is not a complete PostScript implementation. The only reasonably complete X PostScript previewer that I've seen is DEC's dxpsview. (For me, "reasonably complete" means able to display PostScript generated from TeX and dvi2ps.) Jim Helman Department of Applied Physics 6 Trillium Lane Stanford University San Carlos, CA 94070 (jim@thrush.stanford.edu) (415) 723-9127
tinkelman@ccavax.camb.com (07/13/90)
In article <JIM.90Jul12132303@baroque.Stanford.EDU>, jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) writes, in part: > The only > reasonably complete X PostScript previewer that I've seen is DEC's > dxpsview. (For me, "reasonably complete" means able to display > PostScript generated from TeX and dvi2ps.) If course, they `cheated'. That's real Adobe PostScript bundled into DECwindows. [Of course, as a DEC user, I'm grateful that they `cheated', as opposed to having tried to write their own!] -- Bob Tinkelman, Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc., 212-425-5830 bob@camb.com or ...!{uupsi,uunet}!camb.com!bob
richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) (07/13/90)
> >There's also xps from the contrib software that comes with X11R4. >I've had better luck with xps than with GhostScript. I don't think there's actually been a working version of GhostScript distributed. The latest version available (unless you can get through to the right person) seems too closely tied to some wierd development environment. I understand some people have managed to get working versions somehow, and they make it sound quite good. But the developer keeps promising to post a much improved version in "the next few days" and then goes underground for another six months. To make matters worse the versions that have come out so far haven't lent themselves to making diffs at all -- everything changes. So it's apparently been very difficult for those that have tried to offer assistance. So, maybe someone that's gotten a recent version can make it available somehow and we can take it from there? > >To make quick and dirty PostScript to raster converter, one can take >xps and change the draws on windows to draws on pixmaps and read back >the pixmap when you're done drawing. I tried, and it's pretty >straightforward. If there's interest, I could put together some >diffs. My understanding is that GhostScript will do this too. > >Caveat, xps is not a complete PostScript implementation. The only >reasonably complete X PostScript previewer that I've seen is DEC's >dxpsview. (For me, "reasonably complete" means able to display >PostScript generated from TeX and dvi2ps.) > And I understand that GhostScript may be able to do this too. To measure completeness, I'd like to see it be able to make a LaserJet look like a LaserWriter... or any other device. -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com
richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) (07/13/90)
> >LaserGo's PostScript interpreter _GoScript_ for the IBM PC and clones >will generate TIFF files from PostScript files. I _think_ it will also >make PCX files, but I don't have the manuals with me, so I'm not >sure. > I saw a test in one of the trade journals recently of the various MS-DOS PostScript interpreters (forgot where, sorry). And UltraScript was the only one that managed to print all the stuff they threw at it. GoScript didn't perform as well. Sorry for the half-assed recollection, I'll see if I can find the article. -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com
meuchen@grad2.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) (07/22/90)
In article <138787@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> falk@peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) writes: >In article <1990Jul11.142258.10596@eplrx7.uucp>, cristy@eplrx7.uucp (John Cristy) writes: >> >> I need a program that takes Postscript and converts it directly to a >> raster image (i.e. TIFF, GIF, etc.). Please Email recommendations >> to cristy@dupont.com. Thanks muchly in advance. ... >Postscript is not an image format, or even a metafile format. It's >a full programming language that just happens to have an accent on >graphics. The way postscript printers work is that they have a >computer inside that speaks the postscript language. You send a >postscript program to the printer and the printer executes that >program. If the program tells the printer to print something, a >picture results. > >Consequently, you can't "convert" postscript to a rasterfile. You have >to feed the postscript file into a postscript interpreter. The only >postscript interpreters I know of are: Adobe PhotoShop on the Mac has an option to read in a PostScript file and generate a raster image. I haven't gotten it to work, however. I always seem to get an error message like "Error parsing PostScript" or something like that. It would seem to me Adobe should be able to to parse PostScript, particularly when it came from another Adobe application, without trouble, but ... if they could do this flawlessly with PhotoShop they might be hurting themselves. I've been reading the PhotoShop documentation as I need it and subsequently haven't read it all. If I find out more about reading in PostScript I'll post. Paul Eric Menchen meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu